


A Game of Musical Chairs

by sunkelles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, F/F, Femslash, Humor, Musical Chairs, That one where the game of thrones is actually musical chairs, betting pools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you play musical chairs, you win or you die. When you don’t play musical chairs, you bet on the outcome.</p><p>Or that one where the game of thrones is actually a big game of musical chairs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Musical Chairs

**Author's Note:**

> A cracktastic fic that I hope you enjoy based on a tumblr text post.
> 
> Also, the formatting on this is weird because I wrote this on google docs instead of ms word. Just a word of warning.

Sansa takes a deep breath before she steps into the high school gymnasium. She’s in for the most intense game of musical chairs of the year, and she has to mentally prepare herself.

She’s not playing, of course, and she doubts that she ever will. These games get competitive, ugly, and pety. Sansa isn’t interested in that.

“Come on, Sansa,” Arya mutters angrily, trying to push her sister along and through the doorway, “I’d like to actually get a seat.” Sansa rolls her eyes, but enters the room nonetheless. She scans the rows of chairs and spots Margaery sitting in the fifth row of the bleachers.

“I’m sitting with Gendry,” Arya yells to her as she rushes off to sit with her friend who just happens to be a boy. Arya denies any romantic feelings for the boy, and Sansa doesn’t want to push. She knows that people can be friends without developing feelings.

By the Old Gods, though, she wishes that would have been the case with Margaery. She walks up the stairs of the bleachers and squeezes in front of a group of Freys who are making loud, angry comments. Then she sits down by her friend who just happens to be a girl.

“Marg,” Sansa says with a smile in her voice.

“Sansa,” the other girl says, pulling her in for a hug, “I was wondering when you’d decide to show up.”

“We’re always running late,” Sansa bemoans, “it’s hard to get anything done with five kids.”

“We used to be like that,” Margaery says, “at least until Willas and Garlan moved out. Now we’ve somehow become… punctual. It’s very strange.” Sansa isn’t sure why she finds this so funny, but she laughs and Marg smiles at her. Sansa looks around to see if there’s anyone who might be listening to them, and then skips straight to what she really wants to talk about.

Margaery has organized a “not exactly legal” betting pool for the whole competition and all Sansa really wants to know is who’s betting on whom.

"What are the bets?" Sansa asks conspiratorially. Margaery glances around to see if there might be any eavesdroppers.

“Barbrey Dustin put money on Roose Bolton,” she says. Sansa looks to her, waiting for the rest of the information.

“Tyrion Lannister put money on Jaime,” she adds.

“Unsurprising” Sansa replies.

“Loras put money on Renly,” Marg says with a grin.

“Even less surprising,” Sansa laughs.

“You put money on Robb,” she says.

“After he begged me too,” Sansa says with a roll of her eyes.

“So did Theon” Margaery says.

“Did anyone else bet on my brother?” She asks.

“Jeyne Westerling,” she says with a giggle.

“Who else?” Sansa asks, because there’s no way that’s it.”

“Missandei and the rest of Dany’s clique put money on her” Margaery says.

“Anyone else?” Sansa asks.

“About 20 people bet on Robert Baratheon,” she says, “and about 30 put money on Tywin.”

The announcer, Petyr Baelish, comes to the front of the large circle of red, plastic chairs.

“Hello Westeros,” he says into his half-functional microphone, “Welcome to the 29th annual Musical Chairs for a Cause.” There hasn’t been a cause since 29 years ago when they came up with the event. There was a terrible flood that swept through the city and left hundreds of thousands of dollars of property damage. They started up the event to make the money to provide the relief, but the city found that the event made a large sum of money. They just kept on putting the event on without a charity attached. The profits could be going to gold covered toilet seats for the city council members for all the public knows and cares.

The circle of chairs covers the entire span of the gymnasium, filled with people hoping to take home the prize money and the title of “Honorary King or Queen of Westeros”. Most people call the event the “Game of Thrones” now, because of the tile that they bestow upon the winner. Robert Baratheon has taken home the title for every year of Sansa’s life, and many people are anxious to usurp him.

Robert’s main strategy is “make sure not to lose”. Her father’s strategy is “make sure that Robert doesn’t lose” so they make a good team. Normally her father is in it until the last ten chairs or so and Robert is, of course, the last one standing.

Tywin Lannister takes a seat on the other side of her father while Roose Bolton takes a seat on the other side of Robert.

“Oh gods,” Sansa mumbles, “this is not good.”

“What?” Margaery asks.

“Just look at my dad,” she says.

Margaery looks.

“Oh gods your father is dead,” she says. Tywin Lannister has consistently placed second due to trickery and foul play for four years in a row. Her father doesn’t stand much of a chance of staying in the game with a man like that next to him.

The speakers blare Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” for a moment before they stop, and everyone scrambles for a seat.

The first person to be eliminated is some Frey girl that Sansa doesn’t know. Tywin Lannister is hovering so much that he looks like his butt is magnetically attracted to the chair.  That is illegal and Sansa knows that as well as anyone in this town. (They are all well-versed in the rules of musical chairs.) But the refs say nothing.

Sansa suspects that Tywin Lannister, the richest man in town, paid them off.

Now that she thinks of it, she finds it gross how invested the whole town gets in this game.

The next person to go is Alla Tyrell, Margaery’s cousin.

“You did a good job!” Marg calls out to her, because Margaery is a supportive cousin. Alla sends her a self-deprecating smile, but walks off the floor without incident.

The third person, however, is her father. Tywin is almost sitting to begin with, so it isn’t hard for him to snag her father’s chair. Her father ends up sitting on the older man’s lap. Some people laugh at the sight, but not many. Arya boos loudly, but their father almost smiles at them as he leaves the floor and takes a seat next to her mother.

Ned Stark is an honorable man.

No one of personal significance is eliminated in the next few rounds, and Sansa takes her emergency bag of lemon drops out of her purse.

“Do you want one?” Sansa asks.

“You know me so well,” Margaery says, grabbing a piece of candy out of the bag and plopping it into her mouth. A few no-names are eliminated and Sansa almost takes out her phone to check her twitter. She checks #battleforthechair, but it’s been nearly flooded by her sister, who is loudly complaining about Lannisters and cheating. She chuckles to herself as she puts her phone back into her pocket.

Sansa is glad that she looks up. In a shocking turn of events, Robert Baratheon is eliminated.

Sansa gasps.

Margaery accidentally spits out her lemon drop, hurling it like a torpedo at the back of the poor woman in front of her’s head.

She turns around, and sends them both a cold glare that could strike fear into even Tywin Lannister’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Margaery says, but the woman turns away from her in an angry huff. She then starts loudly complaining to the woman next to her about teenagers and their lack of consideration.

“I apologized,” Marg mutters. Sansa, always the good, understanding friend, starts laughing loudly.

Renly Baratheon is eliminated as Sansa gives Margaery another lemon drop. Her friend laughs a little bit.

“Loras already had a victory party scheduled,” Marg tells her with a wicked glint in her eyes.

“Oh my god,” Sansa manages to say around the new lemon drop in her mouth.

“Cake is cake,” Marg says with a grin, “even if it says King Renly 2K15.” Sansa chortles at that, and has to try very hard to keep the lemon drop from flying out of her mouth like Marg’s did.

 ****  
  
  


Walder Frey, the only person who qualifies for senior discounts participating in the event, shoves Robb to the ground (in a show of surprising strength for an eighty year old man) in order to steal his seat.

“THAT’S CHEATING!” Sansa finds herself shouting angrily, “HE SHOULD BE DISQUALIFIED!”

“Sansa,” Margaery says softly, which isn’t all that softly in the gymnasium. Sansa always feels like she’s inside a thunderstorm when she’s in there.

“The referees have determined that Walder Frey did not cheat,” Varys says. This is met with a mixture of applause and angry booing. Sansa’s not sure who boos loudest: her, Arya, or Theon.

“He’s allowed to continue,” Varys finishes. Sansa wants to shout again, but it won’t do her any good.

Robb limps off the gym floor over to take a spot by Theon but Sansa still feels righteous anger pooling in her belly. She never wants to play this fucking game. People cheat or they lose, and sometimes they get hurt too.

There is no honor in musical chairs.

 ****  


 

 

Joffrey Baratheon loses his chair to a Frey boy.

“I would hate to be him,” Sansa mumbles as Joffrey rips the chair out from underneath the boy and hits him across the head with it.

Varys steps in between them, just barely stopping Joffrey from hitting him again.

“He’s a monster,” Sansa mutters, and it’s not even an exaggeration.

“I don’t even need to win this shitty game,” Joffrey shouts. He storms out of the room and is met by a shocked silence. Cersei Lannister shrugs from her chair.

“Kids,” she says, “what are you going to do.” Sansa can see her own mother glaring at her from the stands. She knows that she would be in worlds of trouble if she did something like that, but apparently, there aren’t consequences in the Baratheon/Lannister household.

 

 

  
The last five people standing include Euron Greyjoy, Cersei Lannister, Stannis Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen (the president of the senior class) and Podrick Payne (a boy the same age as Arya).

Sansa does not envy any of them.

Euron Greyjoy loses his chair to Stannis. Stannis loses his chair to Cersei, and Cersei loses her chair to Daenerys.

To everyone’s surprise, the last two people standing are Daenerys Targaryen and Podrick Payne. The younger boy looks like he’s about to wet himself as Varys removes the penultimate chair from the circle, leaving only one.

The loud-speakers start to blare "The Final Countdown" by Europe as the two circle the chair dramatically. The music stops, and as the dust settles, Podrick sits upon the throne.

The announcers seem as flabbergasted as the rest of the population, but Petyr Baelish recovers quickly.

  
“It looks like we have a winner,” he says tightly. Varys brings out the gaudy fake crown.

“I crown you Podrick Payne, first time victor, King of Westeros” Petyr says, placing the crown onto the confused and elated boy’s head. Sansa tries and fails to pick her jaw up from the floor.

“Did anyone put money on him?” Sansa asks her friend/crush/female person.

“No,” Margaery says in complete awe, “not a soul.” The fat lady sang and Podrick Payne ended up winning the 29th annual Musical Chairs for a Cause.

He’ll be king of Westeros for a year, and Sansa isn’t sure why she finds it quite so funny.

 

“He beat everyone,” Margaery says, “Renly, Robert, your father, Cersei, Roose Bolton, Tywin Lannister?”

“I don’t understand,” Sansa says, “But I’m really glad.” She thinks that Podrick probably deserves that crown more than any of the people Margaery just listed. He probably deserves it more than Robb too. Robb has his popularity to go on, but Podrick didn’t have anything of the sort. He was a bit of a social nobody, but now that he’s "King of Westeros", there’s no way that he’ll stay one.

“This is just so crazy,” Margaery says, looking back at the boy in the gawdy fake crown. She has a bemused sort of look on her face that makes Sansa’s heart flutter.

 

If Podrick Payne of all people can play the Game of Thrones and win, Sansa thinks, then she surely can take a chance on her crush. Maybe Marg even likes her back.

She grabs the other girl’s hand.

“You wanna go get some ice cream?” She asks.

“Definitely,” she says, and they get up from their spot on the bleachers. They leave the gym hand in hand, laughing all the way.


End file.
